


Flee, Fled, Fled - There Are So Very Many Miles to Tread

by Saraste



Series: Mina Murray's Journal [2]
Category: Dracula - Bram Stoker
Genre: Angst, Canon What Canon, F/F, Valentine's Day, vampire lore, vampire romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 13:12:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6007429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saraste/pseuds/Saraste
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mina and Lucy are in Paris, again, secreted away among the artists and misfits of Montmartre. Mina is desponded and Lucy has too many secrets. Still they find love between each other, for each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flee, Fled, Fled - There Are So Very Many Miles to Tread

**Author's Note:**

> And here it is finally. Continuation for Mina Murray's Journal. On the one year anniversary of the original fic. It's not intentional. It's not. Well, it might be. Let's see when the next part will be, as I still have ideas that would be in this verse. 
> 
> Thank you for the nudging to write more, you know who you are. *hug*
> 
> There are also three semi-quotes within the narration of this fic, if you spot them and can tell them where they're from I might write you something. They all just kind of lured their way in.

Flee, fled, fled, there are so very many miles to tread

>  
> 
> _Mina Murray's Journal                                                                                                                                                                                            February 1900, Paris_
> 
>  
> 
> _Once more, we are in Paris. It is said to be the city of lovers, of romance and so many other things that can hardly be counted. For me, it is the site of my life almost ending in Lucy's hands, when she was but a fledgling vampire and was not in complete control of her powers. As I write this I am cuddled up next to the box which is, in essence, Lucy's life. I have seen her removed from it and suffering horribly, the parts of her which are still the Lucy I once knew eroding as the frightful nature of her vampiric self strove for control. She is still my Lucy even now, but so changed from the girl I knew before, in truth, the me of two years past would scarce have recognized the woman I am today. The girl who loved Jonathan, who would have become his wife, she is no more. Now I am, to all intents and purposes, wedded to Lucy, she holds my life and my future in the palm of her hand, ready to crush it, should the idea come to her._
> 
>  
> 
> _Oh, but I am so wearied, so very worn by sorrow and much toil, it is no easy thing to live a life such as ours. Even when it pains me to put it down in writing, funds are and continue to be a problem, even when I have gained some money by being a governess for some fleeting snippets of time. It is hard to find gainful employment when one is forever shifting abode. I weep for the misguided pursuit that has been taken up by those whom we thought our friends, who are the reason why we must forever be on the run. They think, in their apparent wisdom, that Lucy needs to be put down for the sake of all that is sacred, for my sake, when they should let her live for my sake and hers. She is harming no-one and all that she takes from me is freely given._
> 
>  
> 
> _In the past year, since that valentine's day in Prague last year, I have developed a rather strange habit of opening up Lucy's box and sinking my fingers in. The act of it calms me, in a way, and I let myself wander back to days when my life was a little bit less complicated and entirely more stationary than these past two years. The soil feels almost as it had been taken fresh from the ground, by some innate magic I am sure. There is very little that surprises me in this life any more. I am enamoured to a girl, a woman, who is not mortal. A little soil that isn't as dry as it ought to be is nothing ---  
>  _

 

Mina put down her pen, sighing. She rubbed at her eyes, a dull ache was gathering between them once more, a rather frequent malady which she attributed to all the travails of her life. She knew that if she had looked at a mirror, she would have seen a pale face where a pair of shadow-rimmed eyes would have been looking back at her with a haunted expression in them, and that she most likely would have looked one step removed from her death-bed.

 

So she did not look. And she did not, in all truth, feel like she was anywhere near to dying, fading mayhaps, but not dying. And Lucy would not let her go gently into the night, would fight against the dying of the light in Mina's eyes, which were still shining with all the love which Mina bore for her lover, never mind that Lucy would probably be the death of her.

 

She let her journal be and sank onto the bed, curling around the ornate wooden box, the fingers of one hand sunk deep into the rich soil of home within it.

 

'It looks very strange to see you do that,' Lucy murmurs after a time, starling Mina.

 

Mina didn't even hear her come in, distracted and lost in her thoughts, not all of which were savoury. She shakes those out and scrabbles up onto the here and now, in this moment with the woman she loves, be it in a somewhat shabby attic room somewhere in Paris. At least they disappear easily amongst all the other society's fringe-dwellers here in Montmartre.

 

She doesn't move so she doesn't need to see what Lucy must look like. Mina knows what her ladylove has been out doing and if she doesn't look, she can pretend not to know. And even if her self-deception isn't completely sound and solid, it's easier when she doesn't see.

 

'Then maybe you shouldn't leave it lying about,' Mina says a bit acerbically, trying to drown out the splashing of water with her words. She spreads her fingers and closes her eyes. _Oh my sweet Lucy what's become of you?_

 

'You know that I cannot cart it with me, dearest,' Lucy tells her, tone a little flat, but warming with her next words, 'you keep it safe for me, always. It is mine to give to whom I want… like my heart.'

 

'It calms me when you aren't here,' Mina confesses. _When you_ _too_ _often aren't_ , she does not say.

 

The sheets rustle as Lucy settles onto the bed and there's soon a hand on Mina's shoulder. She turns to look at her fresh-faced lover, scrubbed clean of any and all hints that she had been doing anything untoward at all while out in the hustling and bustling city.

 

'I have something for you,' Lucy says, smiling at her, outwardly all innocence and like nothing could ever be wrong. She's dressed smartly in clothes which most likely aren't fashionable any more but as she bears them with such conviction few people ever notice. Lucy would look well-put-together in anything, in Mina's opinion.

 

Mina's past is full of ashes of the unsent letters she has burned and she can taste them in her mouth, dry as dust, even as her fingers sink deeper into the comfort of her homeland soil, of Lucy's tether. She sometimes wonders if Lucy comes back to her, keeps her, just as a guardian to that very soil… Mina is so _very_ tired.

 

_Is it a safe stationary life where no-one is hunting us?_ Mina wants to ask but doesn't. 

 

Lucy's face flickers with sadness and she looks away, hair swaying onto her fresh-washed face. 'No,' she reaches out, something glinting in her hand, 'I  got this for you.'

 

It's a rather simple ring, more than what they can afford, and Mina cannot let herself think about it's provenance. The city beyond the ajar window is suddenly so very loud and their room so very small and silent, crushing her under the weight of unsaid things, of deeds that are best not spoken of.

 

'For me?'

 

'For you, dearest of dearest.'

 

Lucy smiles as she slips it into Mina's ring finger, bringing the be-ringed hand onto her lips and kissing Mina's knuckles once she's done.

 

'It was mother's,' Lucy tells Mina, making Mina hate herself for her unsavoury thoughts, the room seem a little brighter 'and I want you to have it.'

 

Mina's face is cupped between Lucy's hands and she's kissed sweetly and softly, her breath stolen from her by all the love Lucy has for her, all bad thoughts relegated for later. The world is bright, the room less dank and dark and Mina can pretend that Lucy's warmth is her own, not borrowed, that they are still home and alive and well.

 

She lets herself get lost into a daydream.

 

*

 

They almost knock the box onto the floor but manage to not spill the soil, setting it onto the desk by the bed out of harms way. As she stands there beside it, Lucy sinks her fingers into the soil, spreading her fingers and feeling the connection to the home that she cannot return to for a very long time. Not until mortality has taken those who would want to stake her on sight and by that time… Lucy's eyes move to the bed and she sighs. For while mortality is the reason for her having a chance to go home one day, it's also the reason of her greatest fear, her tragedy.

 

_Mina is mortal_ . 

 

But she seems to be so alive in the here and now, despite the dark circles around her eyes and the pallor of her skin. This life of theirs is taxing Mina's reserves and it aches in the dark corners of Lucy's doomed heart which has no  proper  life in it any more.  Lucy does what she can to support them but she knows that it isn't enough and she knows that Mina hates what she does, even when they never ever speak of it. 

 

Yet there are things she can do. 

 

Like lean onto the bed over Mina and kiss her soundly, smile at her and let her fingers wonder. She aches fleetingly when she thinks how Mina is only dressed in a robe and night-gown even when it's neither morning nor late evening. But that thought is swept away when Lucy revels in the easy access. She opens small buttons slowly and kisses every new inch that's revealed to her hungry gaze. She's more grateful than she can say for what she did earlier, for she can let herself go a little bit more with Mina, even when the thought of too much and sightless eyes and blood-soaked sheets hits her like  a  blade  through her darkened heart . 

 

Lucy buries her face between Mina's breast, inhaling in her scent, calmed by it. Too-thin fingers pet her hair and Mina murmurs something Lucy doesn't comprehend in her moment of panic. 

 

The moment passes... eventually.

 

 

Mina  regards her with a worried face when Lucy looks up. 'Let me take care of you?' she asks softly, brushing Lucy's hair out of her eyes. 

 

She  acquiesces.

 

Mina covers Lucy's face in kisses and peels her out of her clothes with a hushed reverence which is somehow new, as are the sideways glances whenever Lucy tries to catch her eye. But all of that disappears from Lucy's mind when Mina's lips travel over her body, down from between her breasts over her stomach and to where she's quivering and wanting. 

 

There are no special kisses that night and Lucy feels like they're both still mortal. 

 

Even when neither of them really isn't.


End file.
